My friend is bemused by the barrage of contradictory advice he is getting about the tastes of the people of Delhi. He has been told that he should Punjabify his food. He’s been advised to throw all seafood off the menu or at the very least to reduce it substantially. He has heard that the people of Delhi only eat chicken and so 70 per cent of his menu should be chicken-based. Others have told him to kick keema off the menu because people in Delhi regard keema as meat for the lower classes. And no Gujarati-type sweetness please. It may work in Bombay but not here.

My friend is one of India’s greatest chefs so it takes a lot to shake his confidence. Moreover, one of the restaurants he’s opening is Thai so if he is to believe what people are telling him, then he might as well close before he starts. Thai food is based on a sour-sweet combination (sugar is an essential ingredient of many of the dishes) so he can hardly dispense with the sweetness. Many classic Thai dishes, including the minced chicken with basil or the laab (minced meat) salad from the north, depend on various kinds of keema, so he has no choice but to use mince. And while the Thais do eat chicken, you can hardly run a Thai restaurant without seafood.

I asked my friend to tell his advisers to take a flying leap. Delhi today is too sophisticated for these kinds of dated generalisations. But afterwards I wondered if I was wrong to be so certain. Perhaps there are regional variations in tastes that you and I do not notice but which restaurateurs are aware of.

Ah, yes. An excellent verb. Where is our resident French philosopher; he's probably the only one in here with the intellect to find that humorous._________________Deja Moo: the feeling that you've heard this bull before

Last edited by Bones McCracker on Wed Mar 20, 2013 4:31 am; edited 1 time in total

I'm pretty sure they hate all music apart from Bhangra there too._________________At some stage, the Hindus locked on to the nation destroying concepts like ahimsa (non-violence), shanti (peace), satya (truth) — the ‘ass’ syndrome.

Last edited by runningwithscissors on Sat Mar 23, 2013 8:06 am; edited 1 time in total

Next you'll be telling me that Bangalore, Hyderabad and Gurgaon are cities and not just dusty little towns. _________________At some stage, the Hindus locked on to the nation destroying concepts like ahimsa (non-violence), shanti (peace), satya (truth) — the ‘ass’ syndrome.